10 bizarre excuses for calling out sick

Planning to play hooky this holiday season? Don’t tell your boss you had a ‘lucky night’ and don’t know where you are, that you don’t want to ruin your good mood, nor that you accidentally got on a plane.

Have you ever accidentally gotten on a plane, and had to call out sick from work?

We haven’t either.

But someone somewhere has.

CareerBuilder, in partnership with Harris Poll, conducted a survey to see how many people faked being sick this year, and what excuses they gave their bosses. Accidentally getting on a plane was one of the top 10 strangest alibis.

Other bizarre explanations include an employee waking up in a good mood and not wanting to ruin it, one staffer had just put a casserole in the oven, and another had had a “lucky night” and didn’t know where he was.

The survey found 49 percent of employees have a paid time off program that allows them to use their time off any way they like, but 23 percent still feel they need to make up an excuse for not being in the office. (Maybe spontaneity has a guilt component.)

Most employers trust their workers to tell the truth, but 31 percent said they’ve checked up on employees to see if their excuses were true. Sixty-six percent of employers have asked for a doctor’s note, 49 percent have called an employee, and 15 percent actually drove past an employee’s house. Twenty-four percent of employers have busted employees by checking social media.